Book Reviews by Elizabeth A. White

“I’d like to let you two die together, but I’m not a fan of romantic endings. This isn’t tragedy. This is horror.” – Stephen

Author Jeff Strand is best known for his comedy infused horror, such as the Andrew Mayhem series, The Severed Nose, and Benjamin’s Parasite just to name a few. And though I do love me some seriously irreverent Strand, I also admit that my two favorite Strand books to date, Pressure and Dweller, are the ones in which he included the least amount of humor, instead focusing on character development and building tension.

Strand’s newest release, the novella Faint of Heart, is nothing but wall-to-wall tension. Rebecca Harpster isn’t wild about the idea of spending a weekend alone at a cabin in Alaska, but she also isn’t selfish enough to stop her husband, Gary, from going on a camping trip with his two best friends. And though she’s still adjusting to their new life in Alaska, Rebecca knows the house is safe and that Gary’s the one more likely to have an unpleasant weekend camping outside in temperatures hovering around the freezing mark.

As the weekend passes with no word from Gary, however, Rebecca becomes increasingly concerned something awful has happened. Her worst nightmare seems to have come true when a State Trooper shows up on the doorstep late Sunday evening with news there’s been a dire accident. Despite her panic, Rebecca is aware enough to realize there is something off about the Trooper. Instead of letting him in, she demands his name and badge number, intending to call and confirm his identity. And that’s when her nightmare really begins. (more…)

I always was a sucker for a good cause. – Eddie Perlmutter

Eddie Perlmutter is not your typical Boca Raton retiree. While most of Boca’s citizens find themselves preoccupied with things like golf, bridge tournaments, doctors appointments, and early-bird specials, former Boston detective turned private investigator Eddie tends to find himself caught up in slightly more serious matters.

During his brief time in Boca, Eddie has taken on the Russian mafia and run a group of neo-Nazis out of town on a rail (the cases that earned him the nickname “The Boca Knight”), solved the mystery of a haunted elevator, shut down a cyber-criminal (who’s since become Eddie’s partner), busted up a kidnapping/identity theft ring, and parlayed the financial results of one investigation into a health care clinic for a low income community (Boca Mournings).

Not bad for a sexagenarian with arthritic knuckles, two bum knees, and a pesky prostate.

Boca Daze finds Eddie dealing with a blast from his Boston past when old school criminal Doc Hurwitz, also now retired to Boca, reaches out to Eddie for help. Doc’s granddaughter, Shoshanna, recently overdosed on OxyContin pills she obtained from one of Florida’s infamous “pill mills,” places that churn out thousands of prescriptions for painkillers under questionable – but legal – circumstances. Doc wants Eddie to get the evidence needed to prove the clinic where Shoshanna got her pills is dirty and shut the place down. (more…)

Just let me wake up. Let this be a nightmare. – Josie Ash

At the end of Project Eden series opener Sick, Daniel Ash knew the nightmare that had been dodged by the resistance’s victory in preventing a global pandemic was only temporary. After all, the virulent Sage Flu was not a natural phenomenon, but rather a genetically engineered virus produced by a group known as Project Eden, whose mission is to bring about a “reboot” of the human race by killing 99% of the population and starting over with a select group of the best and brightest the world has to offer.

As Exit 9 opens, Ash and his two kids have assumed new identities and are doing their best to have as normal a life as possible given their knowledge that Project Eden still exists. It’s a difficult situation, one which is not made easier when members of the resistance show up on Ash’s doorstep, once again calling upon him for help. The countdown to the day they’ve all been fearing, Implementation Day, has begun.

Now Ash and his team must race against the clock to discover Project Eden’s secret base of operations Bluebird, believed to be located in the extreme northern reaches of Canada inside the Arctic Circle, before the group can unleash its “final solution” on the world. (more…)

…the killing is easy. It’s the getting away with it that’s a bit more problematic. – The Commissioner

The job of a sports league’s commissioner, while not easy, is relatively straightforward. Generally speaking, they oversee the teams and competition, deal with administrative details and rules governing league play, and generally seek to ensure the health and success of their league. The commissioner in author Dani Amore’s newest book is no different. Well, except that he’s not in charge of the NBA, NFL or some other league you’re familiar with; no, he’s commissioner of The Killing League.

Like any other professional sports league, The Commissioner has recruited only the best of the best to participate. It just so happens that all the players in The Killing League are active serial killers, and The Commissioner has devised a single elimination style tournament for them to test their skills. Each person will be assigned a specific target to kill per round of play, with the targets’ level of difficulty increasing the deeper into the tournament the players get. If you don’t get your target – or they get you – you’re eliminated.

And so, players with monikers like Blue Blood, The Messiah, Florence Nightmare, and The Butcher, among others, are turned loose across the country, each determined to win the grand prize: a shot at renowned FBI profiler Wallace Mack, and a woman named Nicole, who escaped from and killed the serial killer who abducted her three years ago. Of course, Mack didn’t get to be renowned based on his good looks, and Nicole has dedicated her life to two things since her ordeal: becoming a chef and martial arts. Mack quickly realizes what’s going on, and the only place Nicole’s better with a knife than in the kitchen is in the dojo. Game on. (more…)

It’s almost midnight. I’ve been dead almost twenty-four hours. I’m not sure how I feel about that. – Joe Sunday

Joe Sunday always figured his life would end violently. After all, when your occupation is thug for hire to a mid-level mafioso things tend to get pretty nasty at times, even if you are working the glamour filled streets of L.A., not the mean streets of New York or Chicago.

What he couldn’t possibly have realized, however, was that when he finally was killed, well, that he wouldn’t stay dead.

Sunday does realize something is very wrong with his latest assignment, especially when the guys his boss previously sent out on the job either turned up dead or not at all. So when he and his partner, Julio, fail in their attempt to obtain the specific item they were sent to retrieve – a gemstone of indeterminate origin – he figures at least they’re ahead of the game by still being alive. That is until Julio unexpectedly, and quite violently, kills himself in front of Sunday.

When Sunday seeks answers from his boss, he’s informed that the man they tried to steal the stone from has been alive for far longer than should be possible, especially since Sunday’s boss claims to have personally killed him decades ago. The stone isn’t a jewel, he tells Sunday, but an ancient object that has the power to grant immortality. Riiight. Just as Sunday’s about to write off his boss as a couple of fries short of a Happy Meal, he gets a frantic call from Julio’s widow asking for Joe’s help. Seems Julio is home and acting odd. Considering Sunday just watched Julio kill himself only hours ago, he finds that quite odd indeed.

Welcome to author Stephen Blackmoore’s L.A., the City of the Lost, a place where the magic that occurs isn’t accomplished by computer geeks in the offices of Industrial Light & Magic or Pixar. (more…)

Come on, it’s just a grade school. This stuff isn’t supposed to destroy people’s lives.

Richard Gray thought he knew what he was getting into when he accepted the position of PTO President at “four-star school of excellence” Malliford Elementary. He would have done well to adopt General Sherman’s attitude about the presidency: “If nominated, I will not run; if elected, I will not serve.”

Instead, Richard quickly finds himself at war with Malliford’s ancient and entrenched principal, Estelle Rutherford, and her hardcore supporters among the faculty. For that matter, a vocal group of his fellow parents are also less than pleased with his reformist ways, especially when he challenges them on the basis for their opposition to a redistricting plan which would bring an influx of students from a low-income apartment complex into Malliford.

It’s Rutherford’s implementation of “forced labor” during detention that really escalates things to the next level, however, earning Malliford the scandalous nickname “Chain Gang Elementary,” as well as an exposé in the local paper and Richard’s outspoken criticism. Rutherford is less than amused, and brings in outside reinforcements in the form of two (because one apparently wasn’t enough) school psychologists and the founder of a prominent right-wing “family first” type group to bolster her position, and to help oust Richard…at any cost. (more…)

Everything had been blown apart the day two boys decided it might be something to show the world the power of their savagery.

Located in the mountains of North Carolina near the Tennessee border, the sedate town of Rockville is rocked to its core when two students pull a Columbine-style shooting at the local high school early one morning.

Though three are killed and five wounded, the final toll would have been much worse but for the efforts of teacher Jessie Conway, who rushes into the cafeteria and confronts the shooters. When the dust settles both shooters lie dead, one at the hands of Jessie, who is also injured in the confrontation.

And while the shooting may be over, the fallout and healing are just beginning. Even after her physical wounds heal, Jessie continues to struggle to come to terms with the lingering psychological trauma from seeing people shot around her… and having taken a teenager’s life herself.

That kind of stress would be difficult enough even if Jessie and her husband, Mike, had the luxury of regrouping at their own pace, but the local media, desperate to exploit the “big city” tragedy for paper sales and TV ratings, relentlessly hounds Jessie for her firsthand account of events. Frustrated at her lack of cooperation, one local reporter digs into Jessie’s history and publishes a story with inflammatory information about Jessie’s past. And just when Jessie thinks things can’t possibly get any worse, she finds out how disturbingly wrong she is. (more…)

“My name is Thomas Locke. I am a private detective and what I’m about to say might sound strange, but it is absolutely true.”

To call Vincent Holland-Keen’s debut novel The Office of Lost & Found merely “strange” is an understatement of epic proportions. Of course, in my world strange means creative, original, enchanting, challenging, and mind-blowing, which means the über strange of The Office of Lost & Found makes for an amazing read; one of my Top 5 of 2011 in fact.

It’s kind of difficult to explain a book that damn near requires you to keep a scratch pad or dry erase board handy in order to keep people and plot points straight, but I’ll give it a go.

Thomas Locke is not just a detective, he’s a detective capable of finding anything, anywhere, no matter how long lost or how well hidden. He is the “found” half of The Office of Lost & Found, a place that has no fixed location, but rather metaphysically migrates – along with Locke and all the contents of the office – to wherever it happens to be needed.

Locke’s partner is a… well, we’ll call him a man, named Lafarge. Lafarge brings new meaning to the term shadowy, literally only appearing as a tall, dark figure cloaked deep in shadows. He is the “lost” half of The Office of Lost & Found, and you better be sure you really want something lost before seeking his help, because things Lafarge loses stay lost. Permanently.

When Veronica Drysdale’s husband goes missing she hires Locke to find him. Little could she have imagined she’d learn that far more important things had been lost to her, things she didn’t even know were missing and which she’ll only be able to reclaim by making a deal – against Locke’s advice – with the mysterious Lafarge. (more…)

“While people still buy and listen to their music, no band is extinct.” – Alex Weston

When Alex Weston lands the job as ghost writer for the biography of Johnny Burns she realizes it’s the gig of a lifetime. A huge fan of rock, especially classic rock, one of Alex’s favorite bands is Heartbreaker, the legendary group Johnny co-founded back in the late sixties.

Being a bit of an odd duck, Johnny wants to do things a little differently than Alex is used to. Instead of sitting down for a couple of in-depth interviews, he would rather talk for an hour or two a day over a longer period of time. To avoid too much back and forth travel, Alex temporarily sets up shop in Johnny’s town, taking a little room in the back of the local pub.

And thus, over the course of what turns out to be several weeks, Alex learns all there is to know about Johnny and Heartbreaker. From the band’s earliest days in the sixties playing gigs wherever they could, to sold out stadium shows in the seventies, to the band’s inevitable downfall as the music climate turned away from straight-up rock in the 80s, Alex gets a first-hand account of what really happens behind the scenes of a legendary rock band.

It sounds simple enough, and in the hands of many authors such a premise would turn out very one-dimensional. Not so with Julie Morrigan. No, Morrigan takes Heartbreaker and turns them into a band as real as any you could walk into a bookstore and pick up an actual biography of. Indeed, Alex’s interview sessions with Johnny provide the perfect way for Morrigan to slowly reveal the band’s history through a series of flashbacks as Johnny recounts the rise and fall of Heartbreaker. (more…)

I hope that one day you’ll be able to forgive me. – Sara Lindley

Alan Lindley’s world is tuned upside down when his wife, Sara, disappears while they are on a quick getaway to celebrate both their wedding anniversary and his formal adoption of Sara’s young daughter.

His panic turns to confusion when he finds a note left by Sara assuring him her disappearance is for the best and that he shouldn’t try to find her. Convinced Sara is in some kind of danger, and with the police unwilling to look for an adult who has seemingly left of their own accord, Alan goes to his attorney for help.

It’s Alan’s good fortune that his attorney, Callie Johnson, is friends with Logan Harper, a former military man and private security contractor. Though Logan is sure it’s merely a case of an unhappy wife who’s bailed out of the marriage, he agrees to look into the matter as a favor to Callie.

Almost immediately is becomes clear things are more complicated than that when Logan discovers that all documentation of Sara’s history comes to an abrupt end only a few years back.

Enlisting the help of a few friends who are also ex-military, Logan follows Sara’s trail back as far as he can. Using her phone records he’s able to determine Sara made trips to a small town on the other side of the state. When Logan and friends turn up and start asking questions they’re met with a violent response that removes any doubts Logan may have had about Sara’s disappearance: she’s running from something, it just isn’t her marriage. Now the question is whether Logan can find her before whatever – or whoever – she’s running from does. (more…)